Clive King: ‘Stig of the Dump‘ author whose story of a stone age man became a children’s classic

The book was rejected by a dozen publishers before being paired with perfect illustrations to become an instant bestseller loved by millions of schoolchildren

King grew up in Ash, Kent: ‘It was a very boring place to live and I thought what it needs is something to wake it up. So I invented Stig’ (Puffin Press)

Clive King was an author best known for writing the children’s classic Stig of the Dump. First published in 1963, the novel tells the story of a young boy named Barney who finds a caveman called Stig living in a dump at the bottom of a chalk pit, near his home. The book remains in print and has sold more than two million copies around the world

King was born in Richmond, west London, in 1924 and grew up near Ash in the North Downs of Kent. It was from here that he found inspiration for the masterpiece that would bring him renown. He later recalled, “Of course, there wasn’t actually a stone age man living in a cave at the bottom of it, but Ash was a very boring place to live and I thought what it needs is something to wake it up. So I invented Stig.”

In his youth, he spent time with the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve on HMS Farnham Castle, part of the Arctic convoys that provided supplies to Russia during the Second World War. He was later awarded an Arctic Cross for this work. He then joined the British Council and enjoyed postings to Syria, Beirut, Madras and Dhaka. “Each of the things which I have written has been inspired by a particular place which I have visited or lived in”, King once said, “The settings are always as authentic as possible and they determine the action.”

Published in 1963, the book is a modern classic and remains a standard text in schools

His first novel, Hamid of Aleppo, published in the US in 1958, drew on his time in Syria and recounts the adventures of a Golden Hamster who lives amid marvellous archaeological remains. The text was enriched with illustrations by Pericle Luigi Giovannetti, already by then known for his Max the Hamster cartoons in Punch.

Publication of his third book, Stig of the Dump (1963), did not come easily. Following 12 rejections, the novel was eventually picked up by the late Kaye Webb at Penguin, who had the vision to match King’s text with drawings by Edward Ardizzone, creating an instant bestseller.

The story was adapted for television three times. Interviewed during the production of the six-part BBC series in 2002, he said “The book was very much autobiographical, and as it was written in the early 1960s it is based on the world we knew then. Times have changed so much that the latest television version has had to bring it up to date which I think is absolutely right.” In 2013 BBC Radio 4 broadcast Stig at Fifty which recounted how one of the favourite children’s stories of all time had come to be written.

Following the success of Stig of the Dump he went on to pen a further 14 novels, as well as four plays and two works of nonfiction. King died aged 94 at his home in Norfolk and is survived by his second wife, Penny Timmins, whom he married in 1974, and three children.

Francesca Dow, managing director at Penguin Random House Children’s, said “We feel privileged and proud to be Clive King’s publisher and are sad to hear of his passing. This year our stone age Stig is 55-years-old. However, the book’s depiction of the vivid interior life and imagination of a child, the delight of roaming free, making shelters and dens away from the grown-ups, as well as ideas such as the universal language of friendship – and even the importance of recycling – feel as fresh and relevant today as they did when Puffin first published it in 1963.”